Panic
by Miss Lonelyhearts
Summary: Stiles still gets them from times to time. Panic attacks. He'd always thought of Derek as someone who'd trigger them . . .not help him through one.
1. Chapter 1

Stiles feels about hospitals the way most people feel about mad cow disease. They are deceptively dangerous, dormant. And then, over an unspecified number of years, they destroy your life.

So, it sucks more than he allows himself to say . . .having to be here again. Having to watch his dad through the oblong window in the door. Being tall enough to do it this time is the worst. His body rocks forward, breath fogging the glass, and Stiles blinks at the other occupant of his dad's recovery room. Lydia had gotten a private room. Guess the Sheriff didn't garner special treatment. Not that he'd have asked for it even if he'd been able.

_Not drunk. Just exhausted_. He nods to himself. _Not drunk_. Like a bass-ackwards keg-stand chant. _Not drunk_, _just exhausted_. It's two in the morning on a Thursday and Stiles' dad is going to live to shout at him another day because he was _not drunk_, _just exhausted_, and drove his truck straight into a ditch.

His chest tightens.

"Hey, you ready to go?"

A little tighter still, and then an arcing pain through his ribs. Stiles turns to see Scott's mom, pretty eyes and crisp scrubs, even this late (no early) in her shift.

"I don't know. I guess. Yeah." She's short, he thinks, and she's also at the end of a shrinking tunnel as he sways a little on his feet. Then she's perfectly clear right in front of him. That's. . .never good, neither is the scrunching concern on her face. He wants to say _Lady, you don't know the half of it_ and hope it hides the million-icicle strain of what's creeping across his chest. Stiles holds up a finger, toes trembling in his Vans. "Can you give me a minute? I'm gonna . . .go . . .out. Outside."

"Stiles-"

"One minute, Ms. M."

He bolts for the stairs, because _please God no elevators_ and if he pukes in the stairwell maybe no one will find it for a while. By the time he lurches outside, two or three blind steps into the parking lot, Stiles can feel the tremor in his feet snaking toward his calves. Awesome. There's a bottle of something he could use but it's in his backpack. At home.

"Please don't." He whimpers to the asphalt between his shoes, where he's bent and clasping the minor meat of his thighs. Where's all the air when you need it, huh? He gasps but it's just not enough. There's blackened gum there, shiny with age, and it starts to diminish in a tunnel, too. That stripe of pain squeezes his chest again, hard as a wrestler with something to prove, and Stiles would give anything to never go through this again. _Oh God_, _Mo_-

"Run." A voice commands him from up ahead. Not up above, though, because that would be nuts. No this is close, dark but not threatening, and when he looks across the pools of sodium light Stiles sees Derek among the cars. "Trust me, just run."

"Are you insane? I'm not. I'm not." He can't finish, but not because he's blank on what to say. Never been a problem, and he's not starting now. Stiles can't quip, can't finish a goddamn sentence because he can't breathe. And breathing, as it turns out, is sort of necessary for all kinds of cool shit. Chief among said cool shit: telling off bossy werewolves, and . . . living. "I can't."

Derek gives him a look like nothing he's seen so far. Up to know it's been looks of disapproval, distrust. Once there'd been a watery look, blue-green and hopeless, and once, on the floor of the vet clinic, a grateful smile so fleeting that Scott hadn't caught it. But now it's a look like he cares, and to Stiles it feels like a palm on his chest, splayed, pushing him out of harm's way. Derek's hands go up. "You're having a pa-"

"I KNOW what I'm hav-having." His head whips around, eyes casting in the parking lot blur for an exit. But he's outside, so it's _all_ exit. Too much choice and no guide-

"Then do what I say." Derek says. Calm, so calm it hurts. He gets it, why people follow him.

"Kill one alpha and suddenly you're the boss of everyone. I don't ha-have to." It would be a shame to keel over and never say _I hope you choke on a bone, Lassie._ Because it had been his mom's favorite show, and Lassie had been a boy.

"Stiles. _Run_." Derek doesn't come forward, but he sounds like Coach, and Stiles tells his vibrating legs to run because Derek's calm voice tells him to, because his legs are screaming like tires going off-road, because Dad's _not drunk, just exhausted_. And if he runs maybe everything will be okay. The parking lot disappears as he rounds the curb heading out toward Main, Vans slapping the black pavement.

For the first time since they started happening, Stiles feels like the panic attack won't win. His jostling lungs fill up with a more welcome pain, like during practice, and he's suddenly super glad he never took up smoking to piss off his parents. Parent.

Running siphons off the greater spikes in his chest, and when he reaches Main, Stiles slows to find Derek's Mustang creeping along beside him. This time, when he grabs his knees, panting, it doesn't feel like the end of the world. No hospital dark times. Derek rolls down the passenger window as Stiles grips the door.

"How. How did you know?"

"It's . . .pretty common." Derek slides a hand off the wheel, dropping it to his door, and Stiles watches his town's Alpha dickhead try to hide the closest thing to puppy-dog eyes he's ever seen on an adult. Who's also a dog. While Derek's lapse in brood disappears, Stiles forgets how red those eyes can get, and thinks of the Hale house burning. Under his hand, the door lock thumps dully. "Get in."

"Nothing good ever happens after someone says that on a dark road." He shakes his head against the tendrils of black creeping around his vision. Stiles fishes his phone out of his jeans. Two-twenty. Derek's shaking his head, too, glaring through the windshield. "I'm supposed to go to Scott's."

Derek's jaw jumps, but his grimace doesn't quite reach the totally bizarre kindness lingering around his eyes. It doesn't tug those black brows low.

"I'll take you."

"Look, just. I'll run back to the hospital. That's a good plan. Responsible." He nods, but mostly he's thinking of the backpack. Sweet, sweet backpack full of pills.

"Do you want to go back there?" Derek's voice dips and it pins Stiles to the road like hot tar. The voice of a man who went back when he shouldn't have; if that's not worth a little trust, even for a night, then what is? The band around his chest threatens to flare. Derek blinks at him. "Or do you want to go home?"

Stiles slips into the leather seat.


	2. Chapter 2

As they pull up the drive, Stiles hangs up with Ms. McCall. His thumb leaves a smear over the black screen. She'll call and check on him in the morning. Well, later that morning. A stern voice, a tired one, is a comfort Stiles doesn't expect to long for.

"Sooo, thanks. For the ride and . . .you know." _Also maybe stop showing up out of the blue, you freak_. Stiles gives Derek a tight smile.

But Derek twists the key, engine dying.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to come inside and make sure you're okay." He never looks up from the steering wheel, and Stiles stops with one foot in and one foot out of the car.

"Look it's cool, I'm fine now. See?" He holds out his hands for inspection a second before realizing they _are_ still shaking, and snatches them back. "Don't you have a pack to look after? Some group grooming or something."

"You aren't fine." Derek's already getting out, and Stiles follows him to the front door, scanning the street for nosy neighbors. Derek's leather-clad shoulders slump a little, voice low. "I can hear your heart ramping up."

"Maybe that's because of my, you know, proximity to a _werewolf_. I don't know. Or too much caffeine. Hard to tell." He mumbles, keys snagging on his pocket as he yanks them.

"Does this happen around Scott?" Derek asks.

"No! He's my b-best friend." Breath abandons Stiles' chest again and he swears a string of words that can only be inherited from his dad, some from the deputies, too. Palm pressing his sternum, Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and hates that he's going to go to bed thinking of his dad in a hospital gown. He hates that Derek is right about this not going away.

"Get inside, Stiles."

"You better be h-housebroken." Stiles slots the key in, reaching around Derek's bulk, and they shuffle into the Stilinksi house.

Upstairs, Stiles makes a bee-line for his backpack, trembling muscles working to pull zippers and dig for the seductive rattle of pill bottles hidden in the bottom somewhere. He closes on his target.

"Oh you sexy beast." Stiles kisses the bottle.

"Wait." Derek looms in the doorway. One day Stiles won't jump at how quiet and creepy the guy can be. Today just isn't that day.

"Ohmygod, _what_?!"

"If you can. . .if you could get through this without those," He nods at the precious thing clutched in Stiles' hand. "Wouldn't you want to?"

_No, not really_. Stiles blinks, bottle shaking because his panic has spread to the tiny synapses in his arms. Because this is the worst it's been in forever. He rolls the bottle. These are just for attacks, the inhaler would work for his breathing, and there's Adderall in the backpack. And he's beyond caring what anyone, especially a hobo werewolf with uncomfortably familiar control issues, thinks about _why_ he prefers a quick fix to hard work.

Derek's dark head swivels, taking in the bedroom like a bank robber casing a job.

"Clean your room." He says. Simple and commanding, voice not unkind, like it had been in the parking lot. Stiles shakes his head.

"That's not gonna work."

"Maybe, maybe not. Give it a shot." He whips off his jacket and Stiles jumps, backpack and pill bottle slipping to the floor. If he cleans his room, he thinks, at least it will divert his mind from the pull of Derek's shirt over his chest, and how dangerous it is that he's memorized the guy's nervous habit of shoving a hand through the hair on the right side of his head. If he cleans his room, maybe Derek will leave. And maybe the panic will subside because he _makes it_, not because he lays there waiting for a tiny pill to metabolize. Stiles' breath is still choppy as Derek stares at him. "Get started, I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" He swallows hard, remembering the breath exercises he'd practiced among strangers for a short time.

"I'm hungry." Derek makes an almost apologetic smile, pleasantly tweaking half of his shadowed face.

"Of course you are." Stiles mutters, eyes lighting on at least ten plaid shirts, in varying states of decomposition, tucked around his room. "Don't eat the cat, okay?"

But Derek's already gone.

So, Stiles puts his room in order one shaking item at a time. His clothes go in the hamper. His binders go on the desk. His Reese's wrappers go in the overflowing trashcan, next to too many tissues. His shoes go in the closet. His heart goes beat by beat and his blood loosens along his limbs. His urge to flee and sob goes, too. Stiles feels the fever-heat dissipate and when he looks up from the little bookshelf where he's stacking his comics, Derek is there with a bag of cookies and a giant glass of . . .milk?

"Okay, Santa, what gives? Shouldn't you be tearing into a raw t-bone or something?" Stiles smirks for the first time all night, a smidge of pride returning to his brain. He'd bent to make his bed but then gives it up. He's going to pass out in it soon enough. Derek rolls his eyes.

"You don't have any." He replies with a smirk of his own, and drinks most of the milk in one gulp.

It's beyond weird to see this . . .this Alpha . . . standing awkwardly in his bedroom, clutching a bag of mint Milanos like it was a kitten he rescued from a fire. Weird, and also like Stiles can't help but think of _Miguel _in this room_, _muscling into a too small t-shirt, and that Derek had been a kid once. Had had a room to clean up and voices downstairs and everything. His own cookies.

"Sit." Stiles says, knowing how it sounds, and Derek's mouth twists tight. "If you want, whatever."

They make a small picnic of the cookies and some Doritos, and more milk. Derek says the milk is to help him sleep, but Stiles is pretty sure he's just happy to have fresh _any_thing for once. He flops in front of his laptop on the bed, munching and peeking at Derek, who sits on the swivel-chair with his legs stretched out beside the desk. Without the jacket, up close and smothered in orange lamplight, Derek isn't exactly scary. They eat in silence for a few minutes, all of which drag on like hours for Stiles. Scott would indulge him, find something to laugh at online, or pull out the game controllers and hand him one. Derek just eats, and watches him over the rim of the glass. How can someone be menacing _and _awkward? It's unfair.

Stiles goes over his Chem notes. Compares the relative horror of the hospital to the pop quiz that awaits him and decides that his dad, of course, would want him to do both. So, he'll ask Scott to drop him at the hospital before school. And just when he's nearly forgotten that Derek is there, that soft voice slips back in. The one he'll forever associate with incongruous puppy-dog eyes now.

"This is your mom, huh?"

"Yep." A glance tells him that Derek's holding the silver frame from the back of his desk. What kills him, though, is the way Derek takes the hem of his shirt and wipes away dust that Stiles has forgotten to be ashamed of until now. He does it so. . ._nicely_.

"You look like-"

"Hey, that's great. Put it down." Stiles can't issue a command and look at Derek at the same time. Physically impossible, even to protect his . . .whatever he's protecting.

"At least you have it." Derek finds the clean slant of space it had occupied on the desk and nudges the frame back into place. "You have pictures."

"You don't?" _No, douchebag_, _losing everything in a fire means losing everything in a fucking fire. Christ._ Stiles rubs his forehead, sitting up. "I mean, not a single one?"

Derek does a thing that Stiles has only ever seen in the principal's office. A self-conscious wetting of the lips that precedes the decision to lie or to spill the beans. Maybe it's something he pays too much attention to as an unrepentant delinquent, but still. This is stuff they can't and won't lie about. Avoiding it? Totally different. Derek looks down at his lap, scraping teeth over his lower lip. Stiles can't breathe, but the ache of it feels nothing like his attack in the parking lot. No this is way better, and because it's stupidly sad he can't even enjoy it the way his body wants him to.

"This." Derek says, finally. He stands, filling the room and blocking the lamplight, and pulls out his wallet. When he kneels on the bed, Stiles remembers to breathe, taking the wrinkled photo that Derek offers him. "It's weird, you know. People don't keep pictures in their wallets any more."

"But you did. Do." He clears his throat, squinting at the image. To see it better, he holds it to the glow of the laptop. In the shot, there are four kids in Halloween costumes, and one gorgeous woman in a slinky, black dress, long black wig.

"No, my sister, actually. This was in her . . ." Derek sits behind him, leg folded under, and Stiles can't see it but he feels that fight-or-flight reaction might be sliding under Derek's skin, too. His brows gather and he looks over Stiles' shoulder at the photo. "I guess I kept it because she did."

He points her out, dressed as Han Solo (sweet!) beside the shortest, most bedraggled wookie Stiles has ever seen.

"You were cute kids." And they are. All of them dressed like Star Wars characters, except one. The tallest kid, the oh-my-god-that's-him kid, has dark hair combed back and a gleaming smile. He's dressed like Speed Racer. Jaunty scarf and everything. Stiles sucks at the inside of his cheek, suppressing a grin. "Hey, is your mom dressed like. . ?"

"Elvira. Yeah." He huffs a half-chuckle.

"Hot. No offense." Stiles holds the photo closer. There's a crease that transects her head, but he can definitely tell. She was . . . "Your mom was. Wow, just wow."

Derek plucks the photo out of his fingers with the barest hint of a snarl. Stiles watches him tuck it behind some cards and receipts in his wallet, and Derek sighs when it's all out of sight, back in his pocket and out of the light.

"She was cool." He says to the rumpled comforter.

"Mine wasn't." Stiles looks at the ceiling, rubbing his face like it'll wipe right off, amazed that he still carries these habits. Can't talk about it, and can't look at anyone if he _does _talk about it. How is he even talking about it? About her. "Mom. She was a total dork. Sweater vests and Keds, the whole nine yards of dorkdom. But, see all those." He points to the crate on the bookshelf. "Those were hers."

Derek doesn't get up and go around, instead he climbs across the bed, tracking bootprints on the sheets, and kneels by the crate. Examining but no touching. Stiles can swear he even _sniffs_ the comics.

"You didn't keep them in mylar or anything."

"Okay, the fact that you know about mylar says so much about you, bro." For that, he gets an arched eyebrow. Stiles shakes his head, staring blankly at his laptop. "But, no. I didn't get sleeves because I needed to be able to-"

"Touch them." He finishes. And it's so dark and low, weightless like a kid's voice, that Stiles wants to think of absolutely anything else but Derek. How about covalent bonds? So much better than teenaged Derek with smoke-soot and tears, and the blankets they always crush you with when you don't really need them.

"Yep." Is all he can say. Stiles pokes his fingertips into the stinging corners of his eyes. The Sheriff doesn't need to know that Hale was in his house, eating his food and touching his stuff. Stiles will tell Scott that Derek was here, but this . . .exchange . . .isn't strictly need-to-know for their friendship. Avoidance. Good policy. Solid. Derek nods at him as if agreeing to the silent plan in his head, and returns to studying the comic titles.

He hopes one day he'll look at Derek's back, his shoulders, and it'll _just_ be a dude's back. Not the strongest thing he's ever seen on a real-live person. Next to his dad's. For now, though, he looks sideways at Derek, where he's still crouched on the floor, because he can't look right at him. And he doesn't protest when Derek pulls at the stack, waiting for Stiles to shake his head, and begins thumbing through some Wolverine. The laptop tells him it's almost four.

This is the secret, careless part of any night. The kind of atmosphere most people sleep right through; Mist outside the window, and whispering creaks of the house echoing overhead. Stiles stretches out on the bed, laptop crowded between his chest and knees, and studies chemistry without absorbing any of it. He doesn't forget that Derek is there. Can't forget the montage of all the Dereks from this whole night: in the parking lot, in the car, taking his jacket off. Eyebrows and grumbling, but also cookies and Speed Racer . . .and a sister Stiles has seen two ways now (one that he unquestionably prefers). It's too damn weird. But, weird is just the word he uses for something more difficult, like how he can look at his mom's picture again, because the dust on the hem of Derek's shirt allows him to.

Between practice questions, the ones he gets wrong, Stiles watches Derek wipe his fingertips on his jeans before turning each page, hunched over the desk again with a clawless hand cupping his chin and a wolfy eagerness for the story sketching across his face.

It's so weird. Fucking bizarro. And it's the last thing he sees before black nothingness drops over him like a fireman's blanket.


	3. Chapter 3

Chimes. Old-timey clock chimes. His cell phone is chiming. He never sets it to chime, always something louder, obnoxious, like honking or sirens.

More to the point, he hadn't set the alarm at all the night before. So why is it set, and ringing? Stiles wakes and slaps at the phone on his nightstand, lurching up in bed, totally confused and still clothed.

Well, there's that. And at least he hadn't woken with a boner. He checks, just to be sure, and then calls Scott to come get him. When they hang up, Stiles stares at his phone. Derek. He can work a phone? Impressive.

As he gets ready for school, Stiles takes inventory of the other friendly reminders Derek left behind in the wee hours. Starting in the bathroom, he finds that the Alpha has gone ahead and availed himself of the facilities. And that the Alpha has _way_ more body hair than his chest would indicate. Stiles shudders at the collection of little hairs in the tub, and on the damp towel hanging over the curtain rod. His towel. _Fucker._

And his toothbrush, looking as if it went through the garbage disposal, is totally destroyed. _Dick._

But when he gets downstairs, still distracted, opening the door in time for Scott to glide right in, Stiles smells something wonderful wafting from the kitchen and it makes his mouth gape. More than usual, anyway.

"Hey you made coffee, awesome." Scott snags a mug from the drying rack. "You ready to go? Mom says your dad's awake."

Stiles blinks at the coffee machine.

"Yeah, I'm. . .almost ready." He watches Scott search for the milk in the fridge, knowing it's all gone. "Look, there's something I gotta tell you."

* * *

It's hours later before he finds the last thing Derek left.

Stiles stands at the outpatient desk, trying to wink at the shift nurse while his dad signs release forms. It's easier than watching him remove the plastic band from his wrist, or touching the tape and bandage at his forehead for the tenth time. At least he's in uniform, radio squawking at his hip. Stiles grabs two pens from the cup and starts to drum. Has to drum.

"Hey." His dad doesn't snatch them away, only leans close and cups the back of Stiles' neck. "You're still in school, right? That's still something you kids do?"

He glances at Scott and they nod in unison, shrugging.

"So go to school."

In the car, Stiles fiddles with his phone. It's the third one so far this year, and the one he'd paid for himself when his dad discovered its predecessor at the bottom of the Beacon Hills High pool.

But now, Stiles is scrolling through his settings, paranoid. If Derek can work the alarm, what else could he have done? Or seen. _JesusGodNo _there are pictures that . . ._nononono_. But his panic is brief, because that's when he finds something so hysterical, and secretive, that he can't help the grin that surges across his face.

"No flippin' way." He breathes.

"What?" Scott glances from the steering wheel.

"Nothing. Tell you later." Stiles stops scrolling, index finger hovering over a mystery contact that he'd definitely not added himself. Under A, just . . . A. The connection takes him no time, and that's how he knows his life is fucked. This is not how real life is. He sighs. A, as in Alpha.

He can think of Derek as a douche, or a goober, or a borderline stalker with a fetish for going all Blair Witch in the woods . . .but now that he has Derek's number, Stiles can't wait to add another description to Derek's repertoire.

Text Victim.

Almost immediately, the texts compose themselves and fly out into the ether with total abandon.

_does ths mean we r pals?  
were-pals!  
J  
333  
ilu 5ever  
two words…  
booty call_

That last one rolls off his fingers, hot from his over-charged brain, and Stiles looks at the screen as if it might explode in his face. What the fuck is he doing? It's supremely awesome, titillating even, to think of chewing through all of Derek's text limit with jokes. It's quite another thing when the stupid, responsible, sensitive dingus living in the deepest part of him rears his ugly head. He stares at the word _booty_, heat crawling into his face, and remembers the frame with his mom's picture. And Speed Racer. He remembers the ruined toothbrush, and what adding this number must have meant to Derek as he'd left the Stilinski house just a few hours ago.

Some people, he thinks, bouncing his head against the headrest, will never know the freakish feeling of having been an asshole to a werewolf.

Eyes cutting to Scott first, Stiles cradles the phone for some privacy and sends the thusfar un-responsive Derek two more texts in rapid succession.

_srsly, tho…  
thanks._

They pull up to school, late like the rockstars they are, Scott slamming into park, and Stiles feels his phone buzz. Scott hustles across the parking lot, looking back, but Stiles waves him on.

In his palm, he reads the first of what he hopes _Ohmygod hoping, really?_ will be more texts from 'A.'

_n e time._


	4. Chapter 4

Erica's convulsing, and Scott's tumbling with her into the back of the Jeep, and Stiles moves his shaking thumb over the screen of his phone. It's awful, and spiraling fast into utter shit with the scrape of her shoes on metal to the way he can't get the keys in the ignition.

_"Stiles I'm in the middle of-"_

"Shut up. Erica's hurt. We're coming to you."

_"What happen-"_

The phone jumps, sliding down into the footwell as Stiles takes a hard right. Derek will be able to hear Scott's breathing, and the whinging of the Jeep's gears, but he won't see what Stiles sees in the rearview. No more sound from the blonde head whipping between Scott's arms, no more big eyes eating up everything with animal joy. Stiles swallows and takes a left, watching them shift heavily to the side. Erica doesn't move any more.

"Derek! She's. . .Scott, is she?" Stiles shouts at the windshield and his knees. He starts to fish for the phone on the floor, because it's better than the whites of her eyes and the sweat smell that even _he_ can figure out.

"She's got a heartbeat. Still breathing. You have to go faster."

Catwoman doesn't go out this way. This is hospitals all over again, and cheesy school photos in gold frames sitting in a cloud of white lilies. Except Erica's not just a kid any more, and they aren't going to the hospital. Stiles closes his fingers around the phone, mouth dry, and hears Derek's tight voice on the other end.

_"How far?"_

"Two minutes." Stiles says, and hangs up. Every time, he thinks, they'll be the longest two minutes, and if this was Olympic breath-holding then he's sure this group of teenagers would all be medalists. Go team.

In the rearview, he meets Scott's pained eyes.

A minute and twelve seconds later Stiles launches the Jeep into the lot behind the warehouse.

.

She's warm, downright feverish, but Erica smiles up at him like she's just given birth or something. Movies and tv shows always have that moment, the beatific smile of a woman just after she's done screaming and clawing at people. Stiles decides it's all bullshit. Erica is real enough, her weight and the watery black tracks of mascara on her cheeks, and a camera could never really show how it is.

Because it's horrible, and quiet, and her blood is thickening inside his shoe.

"Hey, you can let me go." She says, blinking.

"I think my arms are frozen like this." Stiles works some movement into his fingers, squeezing her jacket.

"Well mine aren't, so ease up."

She scoots back against the wall of the subway car, head lolling on rusted paint, and cradles her broken arm. Less and less broken by the minute. Stiles licks his lips and finds salt, which he can feel in tight streaks on his face, too, though he doesn't remember crying. At the end of the car, Scott leans over Derek, voices low as they get uncomfortably close to looking like friends.

Stiles sniffs.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" He tears his eyes away from their little conspiracy, moving to sit beside Erica. The metal hull pops with his added weight.

"Aww, is this the part where you open your heart to the wounded girl?" She asks, voice and eyes looming low over her lap.

"Mostly I _am_ the wounded girl, so no. And you could literally rip my heart out if you wanted." Stiles dusts his hands for some reason, which just smears all the day's grime into a paste over his palms. "I just wondered. What does it feel like? The whole. . .healing thing."

He twirls a finger over the general area of her torn flesh and Erica lifts her head, slow and sweet as a Jane Austen heroine.

"Um, it's. . .painful. And it itches. But, like, imagine an itch made of every mosquito bite you've ever had." Her face gets a little animated then, lips quirking, and she tugs at the shreds of her sleeve. "But under that it's, um. . .pulling. This really intense pressure pulling at the broken stuff inside."

"Pulling. Okay. Thanks Hemmingway." He sighs, still trying to rub blood and grit from his hands onto his jeans. "Remind me to ask for your help with my college essay."

She chuckles, a harsh sound caught in her ribs somewhere, and Stiles watches her wince. When she swipes at the fresh tears on her face he has to look away from that pain, and the sharpness of her nails, past the normal-girl shine of her chipped polish, to Derek's bowed head at the other end of the car.

Scott looks over his shoulder and gives Stiles a nearly invisible nod. If he closes his eyes, he can almost remember sitting in the library, freshman year, bored and drawing Simpsons faces in the margins of world history textbooks. Erica leans against him, a leaden sack of blonde hair and sniffles, and Stiles would give anything to be bored again.


	5. Chapter 5

"Am I going to find out that there's some sinister reason why you're suddenly doing all the laundry?"

Stiles whips around from the dryer's open door, heart flipping into his throat for a beat or two. If people would stop just appearing in doorways he could maybe get a handle on the unbroken thread of anxiety yanking through him all day every day. He's not lucky, though, and he's never ready.

But as he looks at his dad, the bump on his head long gone, the bandages too, Stiles can only feel that thread draw a little tighter.

"What, I can't be helpful?" He says, hefting the clothes. "You know I watched a lot of HGTV growing up. Turns out you can get out almost any stain with Dawn." Including blood on your last pair of holeless socks. He looks down at the bundle of hot clothes in his arms and shrugs. "Who knew?"

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" His dad asks, palm tapping the doorframe. Then, he just gives up like Stiles wishes he wouldn't sometimes. His dad wears this constant parental defeat like a crappy cardboard badge next to his real one. "Okay, I'm wiped. I'm going to bed and you should, too."

They stare at one another under the laundry room bulb before his dad turns and moves down the hall. Stiles watches those shoulders until they're gone, around the bottom of the stairs, and listens to the clomp of steps overhead.

"Absolutely. I'm just gonna . . .go do that. Right now," he says to no one.

Hours into the night, well past a reasonable teenage bedtime, he's staring at his laptop between the smush of his fingers over his eyes. If he reloads Lydia's Facebook page one more time he might actually create an internet wormhole. Seventeen tabs open for everything from demonic warding to stain removal. He closes his eyes and lets his head clunk on the headboard.

It's all cleanup, isn't it? Macbeth and wolfsbane and Dawn in the laundry. Stiles rubs his forehead as his phone buzzes on the nightstand.

_u awake?_

There are about a dozen texts in the small history of A, none of them more than a few words, mostly commands. Humorless except for a single exclamation point in response to Stiles' sneaky photo of Scott making faces in the bathroom mirror.

The thing is that Derek never texts him first.

So, Stiles picks up his phone, types _y_ and sends it off into the unknown abyss of Derek's home life. Seconds later, in the warm cradle of his palm, the phone rings.

"Uh, hey. What's up?" Stiles says, appreciating for a split-second how casual he sounds. And tired. Then he says, "Something wro-"

_"No,"_ Derek says quickly. Stiles waits for the rest of whatever's got him gravelly on the other end of the line, and he thinks it must be strange to hear your own voice when you don't spend a lot of time talking in an empty place. And then you suddenly do. Derek clears his throat. _"Thank you for today. You took care of her and I just…"_

When he pauses Stiles swears his heart does the same for some stupid reason. Less stupid than it might be, though. Derek takes a breath and says, _"Thanks, Stiles."_

Just like it was an apology, which is something Stiles knows by heart.

"Well, it was my pleasure to drive and scream and nearly wet myself," Stiles mutters. "I'm a total hero." He shuts his laptop and shoves it off to the side. Derek doesn't respond, but there's a huff in his long pause. After 'long' becomes 'unbearable' and Derek still doesn't say anything, Stiles sits up. "Hello?"

_"You did fine,"_ Derek says, and in the background Stiles hears fabric along with squeaky springs. Why do there have to be squeaky springs? He shuts his eyes, trying and failing to keep out the image of Derek alone in some hovel when he pipes up with, _"More like Peter Parker than Clark Kent, but still."_

"Hey, I'll take it. Kent is a tool. Nice guy, but . . ." Stiles doesn't know where he's going with it, doesn't know what to do with a tease from an alpha, and he doesn't know why they're still on the phone at all. But Derek picks up the ball and runs with it. Just not in a direction Stiles expects, if he's allowing himself a little expectation.

_"Who was your mom's favorite?"_ He asks, and Stiles thunks his head on the headboard, wondering just how words can sound soft and pointed at the same time.

His mom's favorite superhero?

He looks at the desk, at the frame and picture inside it, and can't remember at first.

_"Sorry,"_ Derek says, and there are more squeaks, tinny and small, in the background.

"No it's-I'm just trying to-" _Pretend it doesn't matter that I forgot_. Stiles sighs, concentrating on the memory of her in bed, flipping the splashy pages under fluorescent lights.

There's a point to everything Derek does, isn't there? So what's the point of this?

He'd watched Jackson turn into a velociraptor, broken several dozen traffic laws, and had been scared out of his freaking mind while he held Erica so Derek could destroy her arm. All of that, yeah. But, Stiles isn't panicking right now, his heart's just fine. That's when he realizes he's put a hand over his chest anyway, fingers curling over the neck of his t-shirt.

Derek wants to know this specific thing about his mom that he shouldn't even care about. She didn't have a favorite, and this sucks because Stiles wants to explain it but there'd never been any reason to.

"Han Solo," Stiles says finally, air rushing out afterward.

_"He's not a superhero,"_ Derek replies.

"Yeah, I know." Stiles swings his legs off the bed and prowls around his room, picking up and putting down items he doesn't even really see. But, no matter how he can't fit this conversation into his mouth, he also can't drop it now. "Han was just a guy with a gun and a ship. My mom liked that the best. Bruce Wayne and Ororo Munroe, and Clark Kent . . .she just loved who they were in street clothes with, like, bills to pay and sandwiches to eat."

In the pause that follows, Stiles figures it out. Figures out why his mouth is running and his skin is heating up even though his bare toes are cold on the rug. There's pain on top of it, but under it he can feel an itch, a tug. Like Erica said.

_Pulling._

As he hears the faint squeaking again on the other end of the line, Stiles drops into his desk chair and turns on the lamp so he can see his mom looking out at him.

_"That's a cool perspective,"_ Derek says, and Stiles can almost see him across the room crouching beside the crate of comics. The real Derek continues, voice going conversational on the phone, _"Especially for someone who collected, you know, stories that were mainly about the hero part."_

"I know, right?" Stiles says, nodding in his empty room. He nudges the frame forward. "But she'd collected them when she was my age and stuff changes. You get older and the capes sort of lose their snap."

_"Yeah, they do," _says Derek,

And even though Derek's not really doing the pulling, Stiles feels the story come loose and surface. He glances back at the crate and says, "My mom didn't start giving me the comics until she got sick."

_"Stiles," _Derek starts, immediate and plain as hands thrown up in defense,_ "you don't have to-"_

"People think kids are stupid, that they don't figure things out. It was so obvious why they did it," Stiles says, leaning deeply into the chair, letting it tilt. No, he doesn't have to, but also yeah he does. Plus, he's over the edge of it now, tagline's out so he might as well finish the story. "Shit, Dad could have been the one to ask her to do it. But anyway, she'd give me one or two every time I visited her in the hospital."

That part makes him pull a deep breath. _Freaking hospitals._

_"Like a reward?" _Derek asks.

"Seemed like it, yeah," Stiles says, nodding again. Thinking about his mom means he doesn't have to keep remembering Erica's blood, or imagine Derek's mystery hovel, or what each sound connects to wherever he is. Stiles just swings his chest open, tilts the chair further while his arm tenses on the desk, and his mom is there when he closes his eyes.

"It was always the first thing she did when I came into the room. And we'd pull them out of the sleeves and read them together," he mumbles, thinking of her skin going grayer all the time, awkward beside the bright comics. More than that, though, he knows _now _that she'd loved having something stupid to do. Something with just him. Stiles lets the chair drop, rubs a heavy hand across his face, up and over his head, and looks at her picture with a smile. "God, it was so weird the way she'd cram her nose all up in the middle of the pages and just inhale."

_"Not that weird," _says Derek, and Stiles would to laugh at how defensive he is if it didn't clash so hard with how he's fighting not to cry. Because he is, he realizes, and there's no stopping the ball of razors that's rolling in his throat now.

He swallows and it hurts. So, yeah.

"Maybe it was supposed to be a reward, or maybe it was just something normal for us to do together in that fucked up place," Stiles continues, clutching the back of his own head. "But she didn't want me to . . ."

He stops. Knowing _how_ to say something doesn't mean you can_,_ when it comes down to it. Hell, Derek may not even be listening any more, though Stiles is pretty sure he _is_. Skulking on the phone as hard as he does on the perimeter of everything. Stiles gets up, pacing, and his free hand cups his forehead like he's in perpetual denial of his own mouth. Which he sort of is, because this shit hurts and _this is why we don't talk about it._

"The thing she said, after the first visit, was that these comics didn't mean I had to be brave," Stiles says, and he shouts it like he's in courtroom instead of his bedroom. Shouting around the crack in his voice and the razors in his throat, angry at his eleven year-old self for taking the books. For loving them, like a kid does, and being dumb as to how that changes everything.

Derek's not there to see how Stiles goes to his shelf, waving an accusing hand across the crate, and says, "I hadn't even put them back in their sleeves the right way and I'm, like, leaking snot like a faucet and she just . . .she said the comics were mine no matter h-how I felt about going there to see her."

When his rant is done, the sound of his voice dull and gone in his room, Stiles blinks. Like maybe something that fucking painful should be visible, somehow, when it comes out of his mouth. Derek's mystery sound comes back, the tinny squawk of springs in the background hum of the phone. Stiles sinks onto the edge of the bed, wiping his face and finding it wet and overheated. He sniffs.

"I didn't have to be brave to earn them," Stiles says, reshuffling the words because he needs this part to be clear for himself. And for how he'll never say it again. "Because she said she'd never ask me to be something _she_ couldn't be."

Pain blooms again, needle-sharp in a thousand small, soft places behind his eyes. Stiles doesn't know why he's still holding the phone, but he keeps on anyway, bent over his knees with the heel of his hand pushing back against those needles.

They don't say anything for long time, neither hangs up, and Stiles eventually feels the redness slip away from his cheeks. He turns himself fully onto the bed, like a perfect omelet, and flop-rolls onto his stomach. His head is south of the pillow, but he's too tired to care.

_"Your mom sounded pretty brave," _Derek says.

"Yeah, maybe." Stiles had almost forgotten to think of him. His tattoo and his rusted train car, and his visible relief at Scott deciding to take part in all things Derek. He'd almost forgotten who he was talking to.

_"I didn't mean to-"_

"You _did_, though," Stiles says, feeling the thread of tension yank tight again along his spine. A guy makes you spill your guts you deserve to know why. "So what's up with that?"

Derek takes too long to answer; it's the first dead giveaway of a bad lie. Stiles can almost taste it.

_"No idea. Honestly," _Derek replies.

"Bullshit." Stiles flops over, staring at the ceiling clenching his fist in the air. "You're doing this thing where you rip my throat out and you're not even here to do it in person."

If it were earlier in the day his instincts against what he's about to say would actually stop him. Self-preservation runs the length of Stiles like rebar through concrete. Especially where real claws and teeth are involved. But it's late, and Stiles is done yo-yoing through his own anxiety. "Do you have _any_ idea what a massive asshole you are?"

_"You didn't have to say anything. That was all-" _Derek's voice raises, and to Stiles' surprise it goes high-pitched, wounded. But Derek stops himself before Stiles can argue, proving no matter how bad he is at the alpha thing he's got sense enough not to poke a cranky teenager. The mystery squeak does its thing again and Stiles thinks it's actually wood, like a creaky old bedframe, and then Derek huffs_. "Look, I'm sorry. Thanking you was all I meant to do. And I did that. So, good night, Stiles."_

"Dude, whatever," Stiles says, throwing a punch at the air, teeth grinding. "I hope the bed bugs bite your ass."

That's when people who hate each other would hang up. Except people who hate each other wouldn't be talking. Not like this. Stiles pulls his lip between his teeth, ready to hit _End,_ when a totally bizarre sound drifts over the phone.

Derek laughs. Audible, actual, laughing on the other end of the line.

Stiles has never wanted to see something as bad as he wants to _see_ Derek laughing.

It's incongruous with everything he thinks he knows about the guy, from the stubble and the constipated eyebrows, to the all that leather and sadness. The sound of it . . .it's gotta be like the eighth wonder of the world. The Great Laugh of Derek Hale.

And he wouldn't stop himself from reacting to it even if he could. Stiles can't stop smiling as Derek chuckles, somewhere alone with his phone. Even as it tapers off, Stiles lets the brightness of it slash right across what hurts.

"I'm just saying," Stiles says, sitting up because his body is handling this conversation poorly, wanting ten different things, and Stiles is still pissed. Smiling but pissed. "It's not like I call you up in the middle of the night to play Oprah with _your_ tragedies."

_"And you won't," _Derek replies darkly._ "Not unless you want me there in person to do the throat-ripping thing."_

"Okay, okay." Stiles ducks his head, picking at a thread on the comforter. "Slow your roll, Speed Racer."

_"I knew I'd regret that_," he says, and Stiles hears a rustle instead of a squeak. Derek sighs._ "Just didn't think it'd be so soon."_

Yeah, Stiles is still smiling. Still stuck on the Halloween picture, but also racing away from the hospital at night. Still thrumming over the way tears and laughter cross their streams and melt everything. So he falls back onto the bed, still smiling.

"Derek Hale regrets? Never!" Stiles gasps, looking at the ceiling, cramming an arm behind his head.

It doesn't get him a laugh, but Stiles has always been good with a challenge. Goals. Goals he can deal with better than stains.

_"Good night, Stiles." _Derek's voice is soft again, and final.

"Eh, not so much _now_, but okay." Stiles exhales. Jackson's scales, Erica's dead weight, and now werewolf therapy. Not a good night, no, but there are worse ones far behind him. He yawns. "Good night, Miguel"

Stiles slides his thumb over the End button, heart banging oddly behind his ribs. Because, he can't be sure, but he thinks Derek waited to hang up.


End file.
